Benjamin Graham (May 8, 1894 – September 21, 1976), the father of value investing, in his book, The Intelligent Investor, summed up the secret of sound investment in three words: margin of safety. Warren Buffett, Benjamin Graham’s most famous disciple, explained his mentor’s margin of safety concept this way (Source: The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville by Warren E. Buffett): “You don’t try and buy businesses worth $83 million for $80 million. You leave yourself an enormous margin (of safety). When you build a bridge, you insist it can carry 30,000 pounds, but you only drive 10,000-pound trucks across it. And that same principle works in investing.”

In Chapter 20 (“Margin of Safety” as the Concept of Investment”) of The Intelligent Investor, Benjamin Graham summed up the chapter by saying: “Investment is most intelligent when it is most businesslike”.

“If a person sets out to make profits from security purchases and sales, he is embarking on a business venture of his own, which must be run in accordance with accepted business principles if it is to have a chance of success,” said Benjamin Graham. In other words, view a corporate security as an ownership interest in a specific business enterprise.

Benjamin Graham listed four sound business principles and explained how they were related to the securities investor:

(1) “Know what you’re doing – know your business.” Benjamin Graham said that the investor should not try to make “business profits” out of securities – that is, returns in excess of normal interest and dividend income – unless “you know as much about security values as you would need to know about the value of merchandise that you proposed to manufacture or deal in”.

(2) “Do not let anyone else run your business, unless (1) you can supervise his performance with adequate care and comprehension or (2) you have unusually strong reasons for placing implicit confidence in his integrity and ability.” For the investor, it means understanding the conditions under which he will permit someone to decide what is done with his money.

(3) “Do not enter upon an operation – that is, manufacturing or trading in an item – unless a reliable calculation shows that it has a fair chance to yield a reasonable profit. In particular, keep away from ventures in which you have little to gain and much to lose.” The enterprising investor should make sure that his operations for profit should not be based on optimism but on arithmetic. For every investor who limits his return to a small figure, such as in a conventional bond or preferred stock – he needs to ask for convincing evidence that he is not risking a substantial part of his principal.

(4) “Have the courage of your knowledge and experience. If you have formed a conclusion from the facts and if you know your judgment is sound, act on it – even others may hesitate or differ.” “In the securities world, courage becomes the supreme virtue after adequate knowledge and a tested judgment are at hand,” said Benjamin Graham.

Toys "R" Us is closing. But independent toy shops say they're doing fine, despite competition from mega-stores. Many parents want to support local business and take their kids to stores where they can play with a toy before they buy it.

FOR the five sessions ended March 15, the Straits Times Index (STI) gained 1.1 per cent compared to an average 0.8 per cent gain for the benchmarks of Japan, Hong Kong, Australia and the United States. In terms of SGD total returns, the STI has continued to be the best 2018 performer (through to March […]

GASHUB, which is pulling its reverse takeover plans in Australia for a listing on the Singapore Exchange (SGX), has big plans for the city-state this year. The Singapore gas piping firm plans to start selling liquefied natural gas (LNG) to industrial users in small cylinders, and will also enter the electricity retail market.

AFTER a week of rocky trading, the Singapore bourse could quite possibly be headed for more choppiness with the tug of war between monetary policy and trade fears as the dominant trading theme set to continue this week.

COMPANIES will have to combine both profit-making and impact as their goals as they cannot keep dumping negative externalities - indirect costs imposed on third parties - onto the world, B Corps global ambassador Marcello Palazzi told The Business Times in an exclusive interview.

AFTER a week of rocky trading, the Singapore bourse could quite possibly be headed for more choppiness with the tug of war between monetary policy and trade fears as the dominant trading theme set to continue this week.

[LONDON] European shares rose on Friday, led by NEX Group as it jumped after a takeover offer, but stocks ended the week with a slight loss as worries about a trade war and geopolitical tensions kept investors on edge.

THOMAS Kuhn, the American physicist and philosopher, is perhaps best known to the public for the phrase "paradigm shift". In his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, he describes the differences between ordinary scientific problem solving - what he termed "normal science" - and scientific revolutions. His concept of nonlinear evolution became so widely adopted […]

Buffettpedia

In the last few weeks, we have seen two high profile unicorns file for initial public offerings. The first out of the gate was Dropbox, a storage solution for a world where gigabyte files are the rule rather than the exception, with a filing on February 23. Following close after, on February 28, Spotify, positioning […]

My posts over the last two months have been heavy, dealing first with my data update from January 2018, and with the market and its volatility in the last few weeks. I felt like taking a break and talking about something lighter and more personal, and giving you an update on my teaching, writing and […]

Jerome Powell, the new Fed Chair, was on Capitol Hill on February 27, and his testimony was, for the most part, predictable and uncontroversial. He told Congress that he believed that the economy had strengthened over the course of the last year and that the Fed would continue on its path of "raising rates". Analysts […]

The last week has been a roller coaster ride, though more down than up, and investors have done what they always do during market crises. The fear factor rises, some investors sell and head for the safer pastures, some are paralyzed not knowing what to do, and some double down as contrarians, buying into the […]

In my first nine posts on my data update for 2018, I focused on the costs that companies face in raising equity and debt, and their investment, financing and dividend decisions. In assessing those decisions, though, I looked at their actions through the lens of value creation, arguing that investing in projects that earn less […]

If success for a farmer is measured by his or her harvest, success in a business, from an investors' standpoint, should be measured by its capacity to return cash flows for its owners. That is not belittling the intermediate steps needed to get there, since to be able to generate these cash flows, businesses have […]

In the United States, as in much of the rest of the world, and as has been true for most of the last century, the tax code has been tilted towards debt, rewarding firms that borrow money with tax savings, relative to those that use equity to fund their operations. While the original rationale for […]

I have spent the last few posts trying to estimate what firms need to generate as returns on investments, culminating in the cost of capital estimates in the last post. In this post, I will look at the other and perhaps more consequential part of the equation, by looking at what companies generate as profits […]

I have long described the cost of capital as the Swiss Army Knife of finance, since it shows up in so many places in finance, albeit in different forms. In corporate finance, it is not only the cost of raising funding for a business but also the hurdle rate to use in capital budgeting and […]

In my last post, I looked at the currency confusions that globalization has brought into financial analysis, and how to clean up for them. In this post, I discuss the other aspect of globalization that is forcing analysts to change long accepted practices in estimating equity risk premiums for companies. Taking what they have learned […]

Warren Buffett was interviewed on CNBC on February 26, 2018 from 6:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m ET., primarily to discuss his annual Letter to Shareholders that was released on February 24. The highlights of this interview were: (1) Berkshire Hathaway’s net worth increased by $65.3 billion in 2017, partially as a result of a $29 […]

I was interviewed on BNN TV (Business News Network – Canada) on February 26, 2018 at 8:40 a.m. ET on Warren Buffett’s Letter To Shareholders. Highlights of my interview: (1) Warren Buffett has not made a major purchase recently because stocks are near all-time highs and he would have to pay a 25% premium over […]

Berkshire Hathaway released Warren Buffett’s 2017 Letter to Shareholders at 8:00 a.m. today. The highlights were: (1) Berkshire’s $65 billion gain in net worth or book value in 2017 resulted from a $36 billion gain from operations and a $29 billion gain from the cut in corporate income taxes in December. As a result, Berkshire’s […]

I am quoted in a Wall Street Journal article: “Playing With $100 Billion, Warren Buffett Is Giant Trader of U.S. Treasury Bills”. “He’s aware that [Berkshire’s cash] is not earning a high rate of return for shareholders,” said David Kass, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business and a […]

I am quoted in this CNBC article: “Warren Buffett’s partner Charlie Munger reveals how much of an impact luck has on success”. Fellow Omaha-native Buffett has also touted the critical role luck has played in his life and told MBA students at the University of Maryland in 2013 that winning the “ovarian lottery” helped determine his success. “Warren Buffett […]

Berkshire Hathaway’s 2017 Annual Report to shareholders will be posted on the Internet on Saturday, February 24, 2018, at approximately 8:00 a.m. eastern time where it can be accessed at www.berkshirehathaway.com. The Annual Report will include Warren Buffett’s annual letter to shareholders as well as information about Berkshire’s financial position and results of operations. Concurrent […]

In an SEC 13F filing after the market closed today, Berkshire Hathaway (Warren Buffett) reported the following major changes to its common stock portfolio during the fourth quarter of 2017: Additions: (1) Apple – An additional $5.3 billion stake of 31.2 million shares (or additional 23.3% stake) resulting in a total position valued at $28 […]

I am quoted in the Washington Post: “There is a lot of concern in the rising yield in the 10-year Treasury note,” said David Kass, professor of finance at the University of Maryland. “As it approaches 3 percent, concerns about inflation and competition for stocks by fixed income securities are increasing.”